1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method, and a program.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a method is gaining attention that is for automatically extracting, from an arbitrary data group for which it is difficult to quantitatively determine a feature, a feature quantity of the data group. For example, a method of taking arbitrary music data as an input and automatically constructing an algorithm for automatically extracting the music genre to which the music data belongs is known. The music genres, such as jazz, classics and pops, are not quantitatively determined according to the type of instrument or performance mode. Accordingly, in the past, it was generally considered difficult to automatically extract the music genre from music data when arbitrary music data was given.
However, in reality, features that separate the music genres are potentially included in various combinations of information items such as a combination of pitches included in music data, a manner of combining pitches, a combination of types of instruments, a structure of a melody line or a bass line. Accordingly, a study of a feature quantity extractor has been conducted with regard to the possibility of automatic construction, by machine learning, of an algorithm for extracting such feature (hereinafter, feature quantity extractor). As one study result, there can be cited an automatic construction method, described in JP-A-2009-48266, of a feature quantity extractor based on a genetic algorithm. The genetic algorithm is an algorithm that mimics the biological evolutionary process and takes selection, crossover and mutation into consideration in the process of machine learning.
By using the feature quantity extractor automatic construction algorithm described in the patent document mentioned above, a feature quantity extractor for extracting, from arbitrary music data, a music genre to which the music data belongs can be automatically constructed. Also, the feature quantity extractor automatic construction algorithm described in the patent document is highly versatile and is capable of automatically constructing a feature quantity extractor for extracting, not only from the music data but also from arbitrary data group, a feature quantity of the data group. Accordingly, the feature quantity extractor automatic construction algorithm described in the patent document is expected to be applied to feature quantity analysis of artificial data such as music data and image data and feature quantity analysis of various observation quantities existing in nature.